HEADER BY YOSEF PHELAN

“It’s been a long, long, time coming!” Niecy Nash (rightfully) says of her recent awards galore. Last year, the actress and comedian conquered awards season with her first-ever Critics’ Choice and Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to a Golden Globe nomination, for her lauded performance as Glenda Cleveland in Netflix’s record-breaking true-crime series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022). “I wrote an acceptance speech [years ago] and put it on my refrigerator with my kids’ homework and art projects,” Nash, a manifestation queen, tells GAY TIMES. “People would come over and go ‘whose speech is that?’ and I’m like ‘mine’. ‘Oh who’s giving you an award?’ ‘I don’t know, but when they call I want to be ready.'”

Known for her quintessentially camp and uproarious style of comedy and character work, from Deputy Raineesha Williams in Reno 911! (2003-2022) to Lolli Ballentine in The Soul Man (2012-2016) and Denise Hemphill in Scream Queens (2015-2016), Nash wanted to “prove” her versatility with a transition to more dramatic work. “I can make you laugh. I can make you cry,” she says. “Whatever the recipe calls for, I’m your girl. I love that now I’ve been seen in the fullness of my gifts, my peers know they can count on me.”

Alongside Dahmer, Nash has received additional praise for dramatic roles in Masters of Sex (2016), When They See Us (2019) and The Rookie (2022). Last year, she re-teamed with Selma (2014) director Ava DuVernay for Origin, a biographical drama chronicling the journey of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis) as she travels throughout Germany, India and the US to investigation the caste system; crafting the acclaimed best-seller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents in the process. Nash plays Marion, Isabel’s cousin.

Here, Niecy Nash tells GAY TIMES why Origin is “the most beautiful piece of art I have ever been a part of” and expands on why it was crucial for her to, after almost thirty years in the industry, flex her dramatic acting chops. Of course, we had to ask about the much-rumoured return of Scream Queens, and whether we can expect her to don the uniform as the legendary Denise Hemphill once again.

Niecy Nash, you are… a vision.

Thank you, I wanted to doll up for you.

How are things? How’s Jessica?

My better half is wonderful. She’s working on a new album, so she’s doing good.

I’ve been very excited to talk with you because Origin blew my goddamn mind. I imagine it must be quite rewarding for you as an actor, and as a person, to be involved with a story as powerful as this?

Origin is the most beautiful piece of art I have ever been a part of. It is such a delicious invitation for people to unlearn things, to think differently and be present to it when it shows up in your life.

Admittedly, I was not familiar with the caste system before this film…

I wasn’t either, we thought everything was about race and racism.